Contents

Registration and logging in

You can read and edit pages without creating an account or logging in. To create an account (which is free), just click the "create an account or log in" link at the top right corner of any page. You only need a single login for all Wikia.

Creating an account is the only way to clearly attribute your work. Without a username, edits you make on any Wikia will be attributed to the numerical IP address of your computer instead. Logging in therefore also increases your privacy, because your IP address will be hidden once you are logged in.

There are many other benefits, such as user preferences, the ability to move pages, and a watchlist to keep an eye on selected pages. See "Why create an account?" on Wikipedia for some more arguments.this is fucking wrong

Policies

Do not submit copyrighted material without permission. The best content is usually written from either personal knowledge or through the synthesis of research from multiple sources. For a more detailed discussion of copyrights, see Wikia copyrights.

Wikia encourages an atmosphere of friendliness and openness. Members of the community are expected to behave in a generally civil manner. You should always assume good faith on the part of other editors.

Headings and subheadings

Headings and subheadings are an easy way to improve the organization of an article. If you can see two or more distinct topics being discussed, you can break up your article by inserting a heading for each section.

Headings can be created like this:

==Top level heading== (2 equals signs)

===Subheading=== (3 equals signs)

====Another level down==== (4 equals signs)

=====Another level down===== (5 equals signs)

If an article has at least three headings, a table of contents (TOC) will be automatically generated. Try creating some headings in the sandbox and see the effect on the TOC.

Indenting

To indent text, place a colon (:) at the beginning of a line. The more colons you put, the further indented the text will be. A newline (pressing Enter or Return) marks the end of the indented paragraph.

For example:

This is aligned all the way to the left.

:This is indented slightly.

::This is indented more.

is shown as:

This is aligned all the way to the left.

This is indented slightly.

This is indented more.

Bullet points

To insert a bullet, use an asterisk (*). Similar to indentation, more asterisks in front of a paragraph means more indentation.

A brief example:

*First list item

*Second list item

**Sub-list item under second

*Isn't this fun?

Which is shown as:

First list item

Second list item

Sub-list item under second

Isn't this fun?

Numbered lists

You can also create numbered lists. For this, use the number sign or hash symbol (#). Using more #s will affect the level of indenting.

Example:

#First item

#Second item

##Sub-item under second item

#Third item

Shows up as:

First item

Second item

Sub-item under second item

Third item

Dashes

As of MediaWiki 1.5, -- and - will be rendered as emdashes or endashes depending on the context.

Links

Links are important on wikis to help readers navigate your site.

Internal links

You can extensively cross-reference wiki pages using internal links. You can add links to existing titles, and also to titles you think ought to exist in future.

To make a link to another page on the same wiki, just put the title in double square brackets.

For example, if you want to make a link to, say, the Wikia page, it would be:

[[Wikia]]

If you want to use words other than the article title as the text of the link, you can add an alternative name by adding after the pipe "|" divider (SHIFT + BACKSLASH on English-layout and other keyboards).

For example, if you wanted to make a link to Harry Potter, but wanted it to say "Chosen One" you would write it as such:

External links

It is often more useful to make the link display something other than the URL, so use one square bracket at each end, with the alternative title after the address separated by a space (not a pipe). So if you want the link to appear as Google search engine, just type:

[http://www.google.com/ Google search engine]

Redirects

To redirect automatically from one page to another, type #REDIRECT and then put in brackets the name of the page to be redirected to.

For example, you could redirect from "Cats" to "Cat". That way, anyone typing either version in the search box will automatically go to "Cat".

Wiki variables and templates

Use {{SITENAME}} to see the current Wikia. For instance, {{SITENAME}} on this site prints out as Harry Potter Wiki.

You can also create your own templates. After you create the page Template:XXX, using the command {{XXX}} will include that content in your current page. So, if you have something that needs to be included on many other pages, you might want to use a template.

Discussion pages

Discussion or "talk" pages are for communicating with other Wikicitizens.

To discuss any page, go to that page and then click the "discussion" tab at the top of the page. Add a new comment at the end, or below the comment you are replying to.

Sign your comments by typing ~~~~ to insert your username and a timestamp.

Use indenting to format your discussion. Standard practice is to indent your reply one more level deep than the person you are replying to.

User talk pages

Everyone has a user talk page, on which other people can leave public messages. If someone has left you a message, you will see a note saying "You have new messages", with a link to your user talk page.

You can reply on the user talk page of the person you're replying to or on your own talk page beneath the original message. If you reply on their talk page, they will receive notification of it.

Editing on Wikia is generally as simple as clicking the 'Edit' button on a page. Doing so will take to you an edit page where you can make changes to the page - such adding new information and media, correcting errors, or updating the formatting.

Depending on whether you are logged in, you may receive a different editing experience:

Other users will see the classic editor - this includes the older visual editing experience and basic source wikitext editing.

Quick tips

Once in an editor, you can use the available tools to quickly add and remove information, change the formatting, add new images and videos, update the page's layout and much more! Once you're done making your changes, just click the 'Publish' button to update the page.

Choosing an editor

Logged in users can choose their default editor from a dropdown list in their user preferences (found here).

Setting

Meaning

Wikia's new VisualEditor

Shows the new VisualEditor on all wikias

Wikia's classic rich-text editor

Shows the classic rich-text editor where available. If not, the source editor is shown.

Source editor

Shows the basic source editor on all wikias

Accessing the classic editor, when the VisualEditor is default

Anonymous users will generally always see the VisualEditor by default. In a few specific cases, the VisualEditor may not be available on a particular wikia.

Additionally, the alternative editors can still be found under the 'Edit' button dropdown - for example, you can still access the classic editor from the dropdown even if the VisualEditor is the default.